Down to the wire in Pa. 12’s special election

Emily is a reporter and newsletter producer for statehouse accountability news organization PA Post, and the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. She previously covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.) and The Press of Atlantic City, after reporting for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

Our 12th district special election coverage reminded me today about how, a while back, I reallocated Pennsylvania votes cast in the 2018 midterm election according to the commonwealth’s former congressional district boundaries. The analysis showed Republicans and Democrats would have won the same number of seats (nine each) as they did with the new congressional map in place. There were, of course, caveats to the outcome of this interesting exercise. Check it all out here. -Emily Previti, Newsletter Producer/Reporter

‘There’s a reason you play the game, right?’

Ed Mahon / PA Post

The borough of Tunkhannock in Wyoming County May 3. Republican Donald Trump won about 67 percent of the votes in the county in 2016.

Democrat Marc Friedenberg is the underdog in the special election to represent Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District — but it’s definitely a real race between him and Republican Fred Keller, PA Post’s Ed Mahon notes in his latest analysis.

I thought Pa-12 might have the largest geographical area of all 18 of the state’s congressional districts. And it’s true. At nearly 10,000 square miles, the 12th is the biggest, according to the shapefiles posted as part of the 2017-18 gerrymandering case court record. The smallest is Pa-3 (Philly).

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Redistricting Reform Commission continues its statewide public meeting series. Since launching in Williamsport one month ago, the panel has solicited feedback and discussion in Erie, Pittsburgh and Indiana. Full sked here, courtesy of Draw the Lines PA.

Best of the rest

Kimberly Paynter/WHYY

David Paar, owner of Arborescence in Montgomery County, hands out cards that help people spot the different stages of the spotted lanternfly.

The spotted lanternfly is an invasive menace to the fruit and timber industry in 14 Pennsylvania counties — but it looks like nature’s fighting back, in a way, WITF’s Rachel McDevitt writes in this storyabout a fungus that’s killing off some of the insects.

Legislators recently introduced a package of bills that would make changes including enhanced penalties for hate crimes and authorization for the state attorney general to track hate group activity in a database. More here from Lucy Perkins of WESA.

What are piggyback contracts and why are they controversial? PublicSource explains with this story about the bickering between Allegheny County’s controller and administrative services director.